Abstract [en]

The production, use and decommissioning of electronics and electronic products cause adverse environmental impact. At the same time, sales of these products increase due to shorter innovation cycles and increased demand. The scope of this study is to perform a comparing life cycle assessment between two television sets. The main objectives is to investigate which life cycle phases that give rise to the greatest environmental impact, which are the main sources of emissions and what differences can be distinguished between the two products. The functional unit for the assessment has been the environmental impact per manufactured television and the study has been limited to investigating the impact of manufacturing, transportation and use of the televisions. Data for the analysis has been collected by disassembling, weighing and measuring a 32-inch and 40-inch LED-TV. The collected information has then been analyzed using the SimaPro software and the ReCiPe Endpoint (H/A) as assessment method.

The results of the analysis show that the production of the televisions is the life cycle phase that give rise to the biggest environmental impact, which is primarily due to the depletion of fossil fuels and emissions that lead to climate change. This is mainly due to carbon dioxide emissions and the use of crude oil, coal and natural gas. When comparing the two televisions, one could see that the 40-inch TV caused greater environmental impact due to higher weight, greater dimensions, and higher power consumption.